


Happier

by BloodyAbattoir



Category: The Inheritance Cycle - Christopher Paolini
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Eating Disorders, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Sad Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-05-14 15:23:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19276054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodyAbattoir/pseuds/BloodyAbattoir
Summary: As much of a shock as it comes to you, Durza is capable of expressing concern for beings other than himself. What he will do with that concern, however, is another matter entirely.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This popped into my head and I needed to get it down before it ran away. Tagging it as mature only due to references made, nothing actually explicit here. Also, cherry wine can be blamed for at least half of this. Yay me.
> 
> Side note - I was listening to Framing Hanley while writing this (at least partially) so, please, if anyone picks up on a few influences/hints here and there, please do speak.

"And just what" he asks you, tracing a claw down the side of your leg, "would make you happy in life?" 

 

You pause, taking another drag off your clove cigarette. For a moment, you aren't certain that you've heard right. Did he actually show  _concern_ for the wellbeing of someone who wasn't him?  _"_ Is that a rhetorical question?" 

 

Even in the dim lighting, you can see the glare he casts your way. If you were anyone else, anything else, you knew that you would've already been vaporized, nothing but a smudge against the otherwise pristine silk sheets. But being you, you were able to get away with a tad bit more than the average person. It wasn't that he loved you, no. You doubted that there was anything left of his humanity, let alone enough humanity left to love another living thing.

 

Fondness might have been a better word, but fondness carries with it the notion of softness, of sweetness, of tenderness, none of which was apt to describe the relationship between the two of you, if you could call it such. No, you think to yourself, it isn't that he's fond of you. Perhaps obsession? Possession? They do rhyme, you think, and they are a more accurate descriptor than love.

 

After all, it is not love that drives him to seek you out after he's been away for days, weeks, on some mission or another for the maddened not-king-who-rules-over-an-empire like a man starving seeks out food. It is not love that prompts him to mark your flesh, the indents of his sharpened teeth and marks from his claws and the bruises  _oh gods the bruises_ that he leaves behind visible for hours, days later, tracing up your neck and across your collarbones and over your shoulders and around your waist and in between your hips, clearly marking you as his and his alone. 

 

Despite this, there are a few 'perks' of the job, if you could consider keeping the bed of a Shade warm a job. After all, you never had to fear anyone else in this miserable castle, save for him. You were free to come and go as you pleased, not that you had anywhere to roam to, your family dead to you as they were and anyone else who tried to draw near being too terrified to stay. Anything you asked for, you received, almost within reason. After all, it suited him to keep you happy, or at least, some semblance thereof. 

 

The one time that you'd questioned it, asked why he bothered, why it was so important to him that you were content, he'd laughed at you, an ugly sound that raised the hairs on the back of your neck, before laying it out for you in simplest terms.

 

It was cheaper, and easier, to keep you around than to continue to pay for a revolving string of whores, most of whom only agreed to it out of fear, not the promise of coin. To add insult to injury, he considered it 'charming' that you welcomed him with open arms and legs when he arrived. Of course, it helped, you at least - he would've had you either way, but for the moment, you at least pretended to enjoy it, to want him, and that in and of itself boosted his ego, if only for the brief few moments it lasted. 

 

After that, incident, you'd fled his rooms, locking yourself into a closet somewhere and crying yourself to sleep on a pile of rags. When you finally woke, you were back in his bed, sheets wrapped firmly around you, a teacup perched on the end table, cold as ice. The Shade was nowhere to be found. Despite what would've been a sweet gesture, if you'd still been ignorant to his twisted sense of logic, you felt no warmth towards him any more, if you'd ever felt so in the first place. 

 

You were nothing more than a plaything at best, to be taken out and used at his whim before being stashed back away in a gilded cage until the next time. Not for the first time, you wished you were capable of being loved, that you mattered to someone.

 

But not like this.

 

You wished you mattered as a person, not as something to be used and discarded on a whim, the way you knew that one day, he would tire of your hideous visage, and move on to the next person that caught his eye who showed him the least bit of attention, the least bit of affection. 

 

You think to yourself that the next girl after you, or perhaps the next girl will actually be a boy, you never can tell which way his preferences truly run, will be lucky, assuming that they are the type of person to marry for power, for money, not for love. They will do well if they can pretend to love him in the way he can never love you, never love anyone back. They will do best if they love themselves first before they even consider agreeing to his propositions.

 

If they rely too much on the support and love and compliments lavished upon them by others, they will quickly find themselves up the creek without a paddle. It's funny how people have a tendency to disappear once they find out that you're the favoured consort of a madman once-sorcerer-now-daemon, wherein you cannot tell where the man ends and the monster begins.

 

Or perhaps, there is no differentiation between man and monster with him anymore, because they have become one and the same. The monster is the man is the monster, the two blurring together and overlapping until there is no difference, no end or beginning, only a single cruel entity feared by all, loved by few, or perhaps, none. You wonder if there is any humanity left under the cold veneer of the spirits anymore. 

 

More importantly, however, you wonder how far along that path you are. How much longer before you are no longer human? How much longer before you, too, are all monster, and there is no telling where your humanity ends and your monstrosity begins?

 

A snide voice tells you that your humanity ends right above your elbow, at the top of your thigh, only to pick back up again an inch or three beneath your knee. As long as you've hidden yourself behind a flowing skirt and didn't roll up your sleeves no matter the temperature, you could pass for human if only you tried hard enough.

 

As long as you've hidden the evidence of your hideous insides, the people around you would never be the wiser. 

 

The cherry of your cigarette falling onto your chest pulls you out of your thoughts, causing you to let out a hiss of pain. You've been staring off into the smoke for a while, if the fact that your cigarette was now burned down to nothing was any indicator. A brief moment ago, a lifetime ago, it was new.

 

He's staring at you, digging his nails slightly harder into your thigh. You can feel the snag of a claw catching on the edge of one scar, a twinge that redirects your attention to him, subtle enough that you could've ignored it, obvious enough that you wouldn't - after all your meetings like this, he knew well enough how to keep his damned talons to himself. 

 

You finally raise your eyes to meet his, your effort made so much harder by the fact there is a low fog hanging in the room, no doubt thanks to your little habit. He's studying you the way that a cat studies a bird in the moments before it pounces. He opens his mouth, and there it is. "You never answered my question." 

 

Coming from anyone else, it would've been a mere statement, perhaps a chiding remark. But it's him. The implications behind this run deep, the threat behind it run deeper. This is, after all, a 'man' known for torturing people for answers.

 

"What do you want to know?" You ask. You know exactly what he wants, but you cannot bring yourself to believe your ears, to believe that he was going to ask you such a thing and actually mean it. Surely it was a cruel joke, a parody. You knew somewhere in what was left of your heart that he didn't care whether you were happy or not.

 

You knew that it was just a formality, really, that no matter what you said, it would change nothing. 

 

He lets out a low growl, so low that you feel it reverberate from his throat, into your body, more than you actually hear it. He's frustrated by having to repeat himself, something that he no doubt, is unused to doing. You aren't sure whether this was going to be the night that he'd simply flip you over and pound you into the mattress like a dog in heat, or rip out your throat with those long blackened claws, sever your jugular with pointed teeth, spidery white hands wrapping around your throat until your face went blue. 

 

"What. Would. Make. You. Happy?" He forces his words out through gritted teeth, and you can tell that he's forcing himself to stay calm, at least for the moment.

 

You can also tell that he's quickly losing his patience, a virtue that he's not known for having. A few minutes ago, he was laying flat against your body, pressed so tightly against your skin that you were certain the two of you would fuse together, feeling his heart thumping against your caved in stomach, your hipbones pressing painfully into his chest until you weren't sure where you started and he ended.

 

Now, however, he was looming over you, a predator ready to pounce, yourself the hapless prey.

 

"Well...." You start, then trail off a moment later. It was a question that you weren't sure the answer to. What  _would_ make you happy? After all, you were provided for, from a material point of view. It wasn't as if you required anything, at least physically. Mentally, emotionally, however, was another story, a story you doubted he'd be able to fulfill. You heave a sigh, before deciding that you may as well just spit it out.

 

The worst he could do is kill you, right? 

 

Secretly, you think that killing you would be a mercy. That way, you no longer have to worry about if you are a monster, if you are a human. If you were dead, you'd no longer hold the crippling loneliness that you did now. You wouldn't be starved for affection the same way your starved yourself of food, craving the slightest touch or kind word, desperate to mean something to someone. Of course, it also meant that you'd likely wink out of existence, what little of you there remained delegated to being nothing more than rotting organic material under the soil to feed the worms and the grass and the bugs and the flowers. 

 

"Well?" He prompts you, nearly barking the word at you, almost as if you were one of his soldiers. A shiver runs through your body at how quickly he can go from putting on a caring facade to being as cold and commanding as you've seen him on a battlefield. A larger, more pronounced shudder runs through you as the idea that you can quickly be demoted, how quickly you could lose favour with him, is driven home. 

 

"Well I guess for one, I wish I wasn't a monster." You mumble. You can barely hear yourself, but upon seeing the confusion, the shock, the... rage? Anger? Hatred? Something else you cannot place, flash across his face, you know that he's heard you, that he's understood you. You also know that this may have marked the point of no return. What would he think, knowing that you considered yourself a monster?

 

If you were a monster to yourself, then what was he to you? 

 

"A,,, monster?" he asks, slowly. He does not understand your statement, and for a moment, you thank whatever gods may be listening, be they real or false, dead or alive. He does not understand your statement, and as such, you've perhaps gained yourself a few more minutes on this miserable little planet that you qualify as home.

 

Or perhaps, he does understand what you've said, but just does not know how to interpret it. After all, the two of you do live in a world of magic, where dragons and elves roam freely. If such entities, beings of light and love and all that was good in the world were able to exist, logic dictated that monsters must be able to exist as well. He himself should know that better than anyone, being the sort of thing that no doubt, parents warned their children about at night. 

 

Yet, he does not understand it fully. Monsters are the beings of myth, a spooky story told to get children to go to bed early. They are as incorporeal as the moonbeams that come through the window, splashing diffused light onto your naked entwined bodies as it cuts through the lingering smoke. A Shade, meanwhile, was as solid an entity as they came, as you could very well attest to.

 

Parents did not tell stories about you to their children, warning them that you'd catch them if they were out after dark, if they didn't eat their greens, if they broke a law.

 

"Yeah. You know." You sort of shrug it off, but he stares right at you, maroon eyes seeing right through you, deadpans, "I don't." 

 

It's unsaid that he wants you to explain this whole thing to him. For all of his intelligence, his worldliness, he does not understand you. He does not understand how you, a mortal human, soft flesh and frail bones and sharp edges, can bare to place yourself into the same category as an actual monster.

 

His fingers entwine with yours, almost as if showing you the contrast between the two of you. Slender fingers wrapped between spindly, overly long digits that belay their strength. You've seen them rip out organs, crush skulls with ease. You can barely shatter an eggshell. Sharp nails tickle the back of your hand, and not for the first time, you are reminded of how different the two of you are.

 

Your pink nailbeds have gone the sickly blue of a bruise, filed short and square lest they break, as frail as your mind at times, whereas his nails are long, blackened claws, capable of leaving gouges in the wooden furniture when you've said something to offend him. Your skin, unhealthy as you are from a lack of food, sleep, sunlight, will to live, will never be able to attain the corpse-like pallor of the being laying on top of you. 

 

 No, you were not a monster in the typical sense of the word, but you were not so far off, either, one foot in your humanity, the other in the abyss. 

 

You aren't sure how to explain this to him. A thousand thoughts flash past your mind in the blink of an eye, but none of them make enough sense, disjointed and fragmented as they are. If he is reading your thoughts tonight, he gives no indication. His fingers tighten their grip, a breath away from breaking your skin, a silent warning. You are out of time, he is out of patience. 

 

You inhale, the air sharp and burning your lungs with the remnants of the smoke that hands in the air above the two of you, and you wonder, not for the first time, how you came to be here. Not here as in laying in bed this very moment under a demon who not an hour ago claimed your body as his for the thousandth time, but rather, here, living in a fortress that most only entered before being tortured to death, as an esteemed guest, a resident, not as a captive, so far from your tiny village that it hurt, so far from the life you planned. 

 

You know what you must tell him, to even begin to make sense of this mess, and yet, when you open your mouth again, your voice fails you. You resolve to save some scrap of your dignity, some of your long wounded pride. You shut your mouth again. It isn't worth it. You'd just be handing him more proof that you were insane, more ammunition for him to use against you if he ever grew tired enough of you, as if your marred flesh and protruding bones and your willingness to be near to him weren't already proof enough. 

 

The talons dig into the back of your hand, blood beading up around them. There is no escape, and when you open your mouth, it all comes crashing down, the walls you've built around yourself, your dignity, your pride, every false notion that you thought you built up so long ago. By the time you are done, you are a sobbing mess, fighting to get each word out between sobs and hiccups, the memories and admitting your emotions and confessing your needs and wants and innermost desires more painful than any torture he could've ever inflicted on you. 

 

 He stares at you impassively as you start listing the sordid events of you life, starting from birth, mechanical and robotic.

 

_You were a bastard, unwanted, unplanned, a mistake, and the way your mother never let you forget it, especially in the aftermath of your mistakes as a child, of which there were many. Even now, it spilled into your waking hours, a slight mishap making you cringe and freeze as you remember her voice, berating and filled with insults, crawling into the front of your mind. The way that this shaped your childhood, your drive for perfection that was never quite good enough, a thousand accomplishments worth nothing aside from the odd smile or two, reduced to naught but your failures._

 

A faint glimmer of recognition lights up in his eyes as you mention working yourself past your limits all in a bid to make your mother and later, stepfather happy. It reminds him of his own efforts as a child living in exile with his parents, all that was left of the world that he had known. The recognition, however, is tinged with sadness, as he realizes that as the desert rat of a child, he was subject to more love and affection than you were in your formative years, if he took your words at face value. 

 

_A growing child, you had few friends, the constant taunts and teasing driving you home to face more of the same. A monster they called you, with your freakish hair and even more freakish eyes. You didn't look, sound, speak, act like them, and it marked you for exclusion, a lifetime of torment, rumors and insults clinging to you like a soiled cloak, whispers just out of reach, spilling into your ears at odd intervals._

_Monster, they'd said over and over. You were a monster, to be feared and ridiculed and hated and feared and despised. The word trailed you around like a tail on a dog, filling your ears, chasing you into your dreams at night. Your voice starts to wobble as you recall the worst of it, the way that you so desperately tried to be anything else, only to realize that it was impossible. You were born a monster, and you would die as such, changeling child that you were._

_By the time that you had grown beyond the age of children, past scabby knees and playing pretend, you'd internalized it, come to believe that you truly were a monster, the most despicable thing to crawl out from the bowels of the earth. It had absorbed your soul, and seeing no other positive light you'd agreed. Monsters, you knew, along with every other child in your village, must be killed._

_Try as you might, you couldn't quite die, although in retrospect, you had to laugh at some of the things that you'd done in your ignorance. Of course, sleeping outside on a chilly night wouldn't kill you. You didn't get particularly heavy snows, hypothermia just a pipe dream. A few extra cups of willow bark tea made you sick, not dead as you'd wished._

 

You let out a strangled laugh bordering on a sob at this, looking back at the child you were, unable to even kill yourself properly. 

 

This time, when you take a few deep breaths that were more gasps, he does not force you to go on. But once you've opened the floodgates, everything must leave before you can even consider closing them once more. 

 

_Unable to slaughter the monster that you'd surely became, the most logical thing, you'd rationalized, was to deny yourself any comfort. After all, monsters don't deserve comfort, love, any of the pleasantries of life. Not when they made life so terrible for others to bear. And so, it started, your journey into asceticism, self-denial, self-flagellation. Perhaps now, you dared to hope, those around you would finally see that you were trying._

_Trying to control yourself, trying to be better, trying to be human, the list goes on and on and on._

 

_Your self-imposed starvation made your body shrink dreadfully, flesh melting away until bones surfaced, poking through your skin like a present wrapped in thin paper, your thighs shrinking until they held the same circumference as the arms of the teenage boy who lived further down the road, your spine showing like some sort of exotic instrument only found in one of the rich merchant cities._

 

_Your cheeks receded until your face resembled that of a skull, and on first glance, you could've been mistaken for a Shade, skin and bones as you were, only your light eyes setting you apart from the foul creatures, further spurring the rumors, the insults, further fueling your self destructive ways, until it all reached a head, and you were cast out of your home, barely a teenager, your family seeking to dissociate from you, a desperate attempt to unsully their names, their reputations that were long beyond any hope of saving._

_Somehow, you manage to find yourself in a large city, many days away from home, little more than a wraith by now, the long journey on foot unkind to you. You've no idea how you survived it, but you knew that if you did not leave your village, you would've perished shortly after, nary a soul willing to give you shelter, or even a solitary act of kindness. In this new city, you quickly found work, odd jobs in return for a place to stay and a meal or two._

 

 _Slowly, you blossomed, and dare you say it, thrived. While you still strongly believed yourself to be subhuman, the reject of Hell, it was no longer reinforced from the outside._  

 

Here, you stopped, crying so hard you could no longer breathe, the most difficult part of your confession still ahead. Brief, feathery light kisses are pressed against your exposed ribcage, talons that not a moment ago snagged and tugged at scar tissue and drew blood replaced by cold flesh, rubbing tentative circles across your thigh. It wasn't true affection, but it was all you had received in years, enough to prompt you to continue on as soon as you could draw in air. 

 

_You clawed your way back from the brink of death, into a thriving young adult. Odd jobs became a steady stream of work as a runner for a tailor, tentative conversations became heartfelt, acquaintances turned into dearly loved friends. Then, you met him. Not the Shade, not for several more years, but rather, a human boy, gentle and kind and caring and everything the beast atop you could never be, who drew tiny pictures on the notes he wrote you and brought you tea every morning, an apprentice to one of the physicians in the city._

_A crush turned into pining, and soon, romance grew, mutual on both fronts, until finally, he proposed to you, the happiest day of your nineteen years on this planet. Your heart was finally light and floaty, your head filled with daydreams of your wedding day, the family you would raise together, thoughts of growing old together._

But alas, it was not to be.

 

_One day, in a fit of pique, you asked him the question that would cause everything to collapse around you. What if you were a monster? What if, under all of this, you were hideous? Would he still love you then?_

_At the time, he'd laughed it off, saying that you were beautiful no matter what; after all, hadn't he seen you moments after you'd rolled out of bed, hair mussed and sheet marks on your face, and still thought that you were ravishing? You laugh along with him, willing to believe it. After all, he'd never let you down before, never insulted you, never gave you reason to doubt him. At the time, you thought his love for you was endless, boundless, able to overcome any challenge that you threw his way._

 

_Then, tragedy struck._

 

_A freak accident in the marketplace, a couple of young boys pretending to be soldiers. You found yourself with an arrow embedded in your thigh, blood staining your skirts, a sudden hush in the chatter and bustle around you that was shattered by a bloodcurdling scream. You crumple to the ground in shock, and the next time you open your eyes, you are in a bed in a physician's clinic, a shooting pain in your leg and a thumping in your head, and your fiancee by your bedside._

_Once you figure out what has happened, you go through the stages of grief in a matter of minutes. For all of your hard efforts in keeping your past concealed, it came tumbling out. He has seen your leg, the old scars too obvious to be anything but self inflicted, and has put two and two together. Your pleas fall on deaf ears. He wants nothing to do with you anymore, you are dead to him, just as you are dead to your parents, dead to your former village._

_You thought he loved you, and he did so too, thinking that your fears were nothing more than the fears of a silly teenage girl, afraid to drive off a boy with an ill-placed dimple or a birthmark, never suspecting that you were truly vile, and in his eyes, in the eyes of the medical world, truly insane. It doesn't matter that you've not harmed yourself since you met him, all that mattered was that the damage was done, that you never told him, that you tried to hide it. The severity of your scars only make things worse, a history of self-hatred and self-abuse that dates back a decade, nary an inch of unblemished flesh._

 

_He cannot, in good conscience, continue to be around you, support you, if you were to engage in such an act. Your promises now mean nothing. He tells you that despite what he has just said, he is willing to do one last favour for you, if only because of the love that you once shared. He will set you free, on the condition that you flee the city immediately, never to return._

 

_it is only then that you notice that you are chained to the bed, thick manacles ensuring that you cannot leave. He informs you that the physician has stepped out, with the intent of conferring with his colleagues at the prison. There, a wing has been set aside for those who, while not criminals in the traditional sense, are too dangerous, too ill, to be allowed to mingle with polite society. Your fate is to join them, live out your days there, unless you leave now._

 

_You can only nod, not trusting your mouth to form the words that you so desperately want to say._

 

_In short order, you are freed, helped to the side door. He pauses, looks as if he is about to say something. He closes his mouth, shakes his head. Cannot form the words that he so desperately wants to say. A brief hug, so different from the ones that he used to envelop you with not even a week prior, a whispered 'Good luck', an even quieter goodbye. You cling to him as if he is a lifeline, and whisper an apology. He smiles at you, a sad thing drained of life, before letting go, pushing you towards the door._

 

_You stumble home, tears blurring your vision. You aren't sure whether it was from the pain in your leg, or the pain in your heart. You are still crying when you arrive, sneaking in the window like a girl coming home late from a dance to avoid being seen. You make short work of packing, taking only your most valued possessions._

 

_A book a friend here had gifted you, helped you learn to read from. In between the pages are the letters your once-lover has written you, all the sketches and silly musings and declarations of love, the only thing you will have to remember him by. The books you'd bought yourself, a field guide to fauna and flora, and an almanac.The beautiful high shoes that you'd worn on each and every one of your dates, not terribly practical for daily wear, but you couldn't bear to leave them behind. A few changes of clothing, your favorite pieces neatly rolled up. The necklace your grandmother, one of the few people to show you any sort of kindness, had given you shortly before she died._

 

_You tuck everything into a rucksack, adding a hairbrush to the top of it, your nicest hair pins. You are amazed by how little space everything takes up. You pull on your coat, the one with the soft lining and the furry collar and cuffs, with more pockets than you could ever need, half part thank you gift from the owner of the tailor shop, half part pity as she saw you shivering during the onset of winter. Soon, it would be too warm to wear it, what with summer coming, but the spring nights were still cool enough to justify it, at least for the time being. You tuck your coinpurse into an inside pocket, almost as an afterthought._

 

_You could wander off to another town, further down the country, change your name, and start all over, no matter how painful it was. You slip into the kitchen on your way out, pocketing dried meat and bread to hold you for the next few days, pausing as you catch sight of the ring that he'd given to you the night he asked you to marry him. You are surprised he didn't ask you to return it earlier, but you've no time to dwell on it now. You shoulder your pack and exit through the back door, moving as quickly as you could with your injured leg._

 

_You are nearly out of the city when several city guards rush past you, into the heart of the city. You know that they are looking for someone - you - but for the moment, under the wide hood of your coat, you are safe to double your pace and leave everything you have known for the past several years behind you._

 

_Over the next few days, you make your way inland, rarely stopping for food or rest, as far from the coastline as possible, hoping that your reputation does not precede you, that you can continue on undetected, disappear in another large city. After all, they only know your name, perhaps a few vague descriptions of your appearance, in the city that you have just left. They do not know your face, your gait, anything that irrevocably identifies you as yourself._

 

_By the time you've made it to Gil'ead, the journey has burned off whatever little stores of fat you've managed to put onto your body over the past years living in comfort. You have no desire to replace them, despite the fact that your bones jut out unnaturally, make it difficult, even painful to sleep on. You have no desire to grow again, having been burned already once before in the worst of ways. You sink back into self-destruction, almost as easily as if you've never left it. It is painful, but it is almost like coming home._

 

_Almost. The endorphin high of fasting for several days is nothing compared to the endorphin rush you get when you read over old letters, immerse yourself in the memory of happier times. No matter how you try to fill the void within you, you cannot, and it quickly becomes all consuming, until you are little more than a wisp of the girl you once were, unable to escape the memories, unable to function in this world._

 

By the time you have finished your sordid tale, you have cried to the point that salt has built up on your face and stings your eyes, and the sheets are soaked in tears. You know that it likely will damage the fine materials, but you cannot bring yourself to care if the Shade kills you for it. Your head is throbbing painfully, but you are not sure whether that is due to dehydration, smoke inhalation, or something else. 

 

He stares at you for a long moment, taking in your puffy, reddened eyes, your quivering lower lip. For a brief instant, he sees directly into your soul, and you shiver. This is the end. You'd just admitted to being in love with someone else. You brace yourself for the blow that never comes. 

 

Instead, he does something entirely out of character, reaching one arm out to you. In the blink of an eye, he has flipped the two of you over, as though you weighed less than nothing. Now, you are on top of him, your face nestled in the side of his neck, his arms wrapped around your back, all flesh and no claws this time. A blanket wraps around the two of you, and he strokes your back as if you were a beloved pet, which, truth be told, you effectively were. 

 

Then, he whispers something so quietly that you almost missed it in the quiet of the room. "Give me names and what they said."

 

With your walls finally broken down, you do. You won't grasp the consequences of your admissions for quite some time. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath provides interesting results.

The changes are small and slow coming after the soul-baring confession, but in the near-monotony of life in the fortress, they may as well have been earth shattering.

 

The first thing that you notice is the Shade. More accurately, the habits that he keeps, and more importantly, the new ones that he develops. He is a creature of habit, so to speak. The routines he kept rarely varied, his habits when he wasn't required elsewhere may well have been engraved in stone. Now, however, things have shifted.

 

You are no longer banished from his chambers after you've fulfilled your purpose; instead, you linger until the following morning until warm sunlight shining in your face wakes you. Sometimes, rarely, often after a long mission, you wake to find yourself wrapped possessively in spindly limbs, the monster softly snoring, face buried in your hair. More often, you awaken to find yourself curled up in the lavish sheets as the Shade looks over one report or another from the comfort of his bed. 

 

Even in waking hours, his patterns have changed. Lingering touches, even outside of the bedroom, feathery light, stroking your skin and hair as if you were a prized pet. If ever you are bold enough to touch him unbidden, brief and hesitant, he no longer tenses up, no longer pulls away or glares at you. His trips around the country, task after thankless task for the king, seem to have gotten shorter, with him rushing back as soon as physically possible. Often, when he returns from these trips, he bears a small gift for you; a book he thought you'd be interested in, a new type of tea. 

 

It is not quite love, not in the traditional sense, not in the way that you truly desired, truly craved, but it was enough to fill the void in your heart for the time being. 

 

You are so blinded by the sudden changes that you are wholly, blissfully, entirely unaware of the turmoil occurring across the Empire. Indeed, you could have continued to float around, head in the clouds, rose colored glasses on, if only you hadn't made a short side stop into the kitchen one morning. Normally, you'd send one servant or another to fetch you another pot of tea if you were tied up in what passed for Gil'ead's library, but today, you decided you needed to stretch your legs, and deigned to make the trip down yourself. 

 

You padded down the hallway, silent save for the swishing of your dress around you, too thin to ward off the chill properly. From up ahead, you could hear voices in the kitchen, a scullery maid and one of the cooks. You'd tune it out as the standard drivel gossip that was so common among peasants, but you heard something that made you stop dead in your tracks. The mention of your birth place. You strain your ears to hear the rest of the conversation, the blood steadily draining from your face as you took in the details. 

 

Something terrible had happened at Yazuac, the entire town, from infant to elder, slaughtered. Urgals, crawling out of the Spine en masse, aimed for the Hadrac Desert. A column of the foul things had been sighted, marching en masse, hundreds or even thousands of them, out of nature, out of character. 

 

A lump formed in your throat. Doubtless, your parents were among the ones slaughtered, never desiring to leave that tiny village behind for a large town. Sometimes, in your wildest daydreams, you desired nothing more than to return home, to open arms and voices crowing with joy at your long-awaited return. It was a stupid fantasy, as you knew that the best you could possibly get was perhaps icy indifference, or the respectful fear that the inhabitants of this castle gave to your lover, if you could call him such. 

 

It was a pretty pipe dream, that was shattered by the cold reality. While it was highly unlikely before, now, it was impossible. The realization hits you like a ton of brick. Your vision goes hazy, and you can hear the sound of your blood pumping in your ears. You've tuned out the rest of the chatter. There are only two words that register, that repeat in your head to the tune of your heartbeat. Yazuac. Slaughtered. 

 

You fall to your knees, an inhuman howling ripping itself from your throat, and the world ceases to exist. 


	3. Chapter 3

When you are once more lucid, the first thing that you notice is that you are no longer on your knees in the hallway outside the kitchen. Instead, you are in a plush bed the size of an ocean, frail limbs the slightest of humps under the sheets. Your muscles are stiff, and there is a peculiar pain in your knees, your shins. You stretch, joints cracking and popping like kindling in a fire, before rolling onto your side. 

 

"Ah, finally awake." The Shade intones icily from your bedside. A single look at him tells you that he is one poorly timed laugh, a less than thought out comment away from exploding into fiery rage. You always hated being around him when he was like this, terrified as you walked on eggshells, mind running algorithms as you tried to determine how to defuse the situation best you could. Another glance at him tells you that you are the cause of his ire. 

 

Your mind flicks through the events of the past few days, trying to pinpoint your transgressions. Had you accidentally spilled something on a book or document he was dealing with? Gotten blood on his sheets? Shown idiocy? Implied  _he_ was an idiot? Clogged the drain to the bath with the hair that fell out constantly? Pitied him? Shoved your cold hands into his shirt seeking warmth? Been too affectionate? Been frigid? All were things that you had done in the past, resulting in his losing his temper at you, exposing the fury that you so rarely saw directed at you. All were things that warranted being maimed or killed within moments if you were anyone else. For the life of you, you cannot remember doing anything of the nature in the past several days, weeks. 

 

"Do your self-destructive ways know no bounds?" He barks at you, but you see a twinge of... fear? Could it truly be fear crossing his face? It was only for a brief moment, but you were nearly certain of what you'd seen. You are jarred once more from your thoughts as he speaks again, his words sending a cold chill through your very heart. 

 

"After your little story, after all I've done for you, treated you better than anyone in your past,  _this_ is how you repay me?!"He snarls, leaping to his feet. He crosses the short distance to the bed in a single stride, towering over you.

 

"You. Are. Not. Allowed. To. Die." He growls. His hands are balled into fists, sharp nails digging into his palms until they drew blood. "Not until I'm through with you. And after your little  _stunt_ two days ago? All you've proven is that my efforts were wasted." 

 

Here, he pauses to take a breath, and when he speaks again, the fury has dissipated,  to be replaced by the silky soft voice he only ever uses on prisoners he was torturing, a promise, not a threat, of things worse than death still yet to come.

 

"If you cannot control yourself, remain functional, there are certain steps that I will have to take, that you _force_ me to take, in order to ensure your continued existence. For the entire duration of your stay here, you were a guest, granted freedom of movement, free will. Unfortunately, it seems that this was a foolish move on my part. Those were privileges you were not, as you have clearly shown me, capable of handling."

 

You are still confused, groggy. He hasn't said why he's so pissed with you as of yet. The monologue has ended, and finally, you think, you have the space and time to speak. You were certain he wanted you to beg for mercy, nearly as cruel in the bedroom as out of it, as he had so often shown. Instead, you asked a question, two simple words, but they tore your throat apart as if they were shattered glass and sandpaper.

 

You manage to cough out the words, "Two days?", before wincing at the pain.

 

He notices, your expression, but does not acknowledge it. Instead, he berates you. "Yes, two days! Two days ago you collapsed in a hallway and it's only now that you bother to rejoin the world of the living! Do you have  _any_ idea how terrified- furious! Furious, that I was?!" 

 

You flinch in shock. Not only is he back to yelling, but he has let something slip, a very important something at that. He was terrified of losing you, whether due to simple possessiveness or something more, you couldn't quite tell. 

 

"Now what to do with you?" He muses, mostly to himself. He reaches out and grabs your jaw, forcing you to look at him, gripping your face with enough strength it's nearly painful. You do everything in your power to avoid looking directly into his eyes, unwilling to surrender yourself into the red voids, as if that would keep him from trying to enter your mind. 

 

"They're dead." You whisper hoarsely. Tears start to well up in your eyes. "My whole town is dead."

 

"And?" The Shade sounds bored, as if you are wasting his time, as if he has better, more important things to do than listen to your plight. Somewhere behind the boredom, you detect a sense of exasperation, as if you were a toddler throwing a petulant fit over some small detail. 

 

"Why?!" You practically howl, smacking his hand away from your face. This time, he allows it, allows your weak blows to knock his hands away from you. You know that if he wanted to, he could've stopped you, could've asserted his dominance as he often did, time and time again. Yet, your rare display of violence is not without repercussions. The sensation of your flesh slicing open under his claws is not lost on you. 

 

"They made you miserable, didn't they?" 

 

You nod, the motion causing the blood to drip onto the sheets. You cringe inwardly, knowing that you had just thrown fuel onto an already raging fire, given him something else to be pissed over, another transgression requiring correction.

 

"Then why does it bother you?" He snaps at you. "After all, it was easier to eliminate them instead of you wasting your already limited time trying to reconcile with a bunch of imbeciles who wouldn't even give you the time of day." 

 

"Because you killed everyone!"  

 

He shrugged at this last statement, unfazed. "I pride myself in being efficient. Diverting a horde of Urgals from out of the mountain ranges was already a large enough undertaking as it was. There was no requirement from King Galbatorix that I must leave anything in their path untouched, and quite frankly, it would've been a waste of time and effort to push them another mile or two out of the way in an attempt to spare your miserable birthplace. Besides, they are mere beasts, bloodthirsty and savage. Who am I to perpetually deny them their nature? I had the power, the resources; why not use it to eliminate every possible target?" 

 

"There were innocents." You hissed at him. Indeed, it had been several years since you'd left your home town. Your heart dropped at the thought of any children who'd been born since, likely killed alongside their parents, their grandparents, for crimes they had nothing to do with, no knowledge of. You have no response to the comment about the bloodthirstiness of the Urgals, despite how hypocritical it was for him to point it out, the blood of thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands, or maybe even hundreds of thousands, coating his vile hands.

 

"Collateral damage." The Shade shrugs it off. 

 

"How can you be so cruel?" You snap at him. For all the effort that he had put into being civil and presenting a caring facade the past several weeks, this was a cheap cop out and you both knew it. Indeed, you wonder if he didn't put up that farce  _because_ he had already planned to decimate Yazuac. What if he had counted on the fact that you'd be so taken with his sudden change that you wouldn't retaliate or question his military 'strategy'? Worse yet, what if he had never intended for you to find out until much later, if ever, and overhearing the help talking was a mere fluke? 

 

A cold shudder ran down your spine as you were reminded just how isolated you were here. If your so-called lover did not want you to know about certain current events, it would be all too easy to prevent you from ever discovering his transgressions. 

 

"Cruel? I can assure you, pet, you haven't seen cruelty yet. Maybe I should throw you in a cell until you learn to be grateful." Your eyes fly open in shock. You knew exactly what happened in the dungeon cells, the filth, the torture, the abject misery of it all.His face shows no signs of bluffing, not a hint of mercy.

 

For him to even suggest such a thing indicated to you that your good graces had long since expired, and expired they had, as the next morning you find yourself waking up on a bed of straw as opposed to a plush mattress, the down blankets and fine sheets replaced by a thin, ratty blanket that bore a strong resemblance to the rags the cleaners used to mop up spills. Idly, you think you're lucky to even be granted a blanket, no matter how threadbare and holey it may be. 

 

The days pass by in monotony.

 

You have no visitors, no distractions, no relief from the constant boredom, save for the screams of the dying and the damned that shatter the constant hum of crying and praying at irregular intervals. Three times a day, a tray of food is passed into your cell. A guard stands outside to ensure you finish your food, to ensure you do not slip the silverware up your sleeves. You notice the food, while nowhere near as delectable as you'd grown used to, was still a step above the standard prison fare. While it was not exactly delicious, it was edible, which was more than could be said for what any other prisoner would receive. 

 

Eventually, you lose track of how many days, weeks you've been confined as the days blur into one.

 

The gouges on your chin and jaw scab over, and eventually, the scabs flake off, leaving nothing but a set of raised scars. You can feel the bumpy skin under your fingers when you trace the outline of your face. Your dress, once a tent on you, has started to shrink, until finally, it is merely slightly too large. The deep valleys between your ribs have filled in, the bones no longer threatening to break through your skin at any moment, and your stomach, while still concave, is nowhere near as hollowed out as it once was.

 

With no calendars, no clocks, this is all you have to measure time on a larger scale.   

 

The Shades absence is rather conspicuous. Initially you'd thought he was gone, working on some task for the King, assigned to a mission on the opposite side of the country, believed that he'd come to visit you, perhaps even free you as soon as he returned. As time wears on, however, you start to piece together the evidence, and realize that something is very wrong. You've heard his footsteps echoing off the stone walls, heard his voice here and there, but have not seen hide nor hair of the bastard. 

 

You could've chalked it up to hallucinating, if not for the conversations between the other soldiers, the remarks they make. Never to you, of course, but to each other. Now, your questions, your comments all fall on deaf ears. If anything that you say matters anymore, they do not acknowledge it, do not reply, and indeed, if not for the fact that someone brought you food on a regular basis, you would've easily thought that you'd been forgotten. 

 

Eventually, your thoughts take a turn for the darker.

 

What if the Shade was going to keep you down here forever? What if you'd already been replaced, someone prettier and less troublesome warming his bed now? This last thought, above all else, sent a pang through your heart. As much as you insisted that you didn't love him, that he didn't -  _couldn't_ \- love you, the idea of being replaced was painful. While not something that you were necessarily proud of, being the favoured consort to the right hand of the King, it was all that you had known for the past several years, and if you were being honest with yourself, at this point, it was all that you were good for. 

 

The wave of grief that hits you at this last sentiment is so strong it's almost tangible.

 

You let out a whine through your nose, biting down on the side of your thumb to keep from crying. Before you collapsed, you had  _something,_ even if it wasn't all that you'd ever dreamed of, all that you ever wished for. Before being confined to the dungeons, you were  _someone,_ a living flesh-and-blood human with a name, a soul, a heart, likes and dislikes and hopes and dreams and everything that made a person who they were. Now, you were nothing more than another prisoner, a meat sack to keep alive, a name and prisoner number jotted down in a ledger somewhere, to eventually be forgotten after you died. 

 

You feel as though you have already been forgotten even though you weren't dead yet.

 

After all, no one interacted with you, no one spoke to you, or even told you what was happening. Your hopes of having a normal life had been destroyed, your dreams of a stable family stolen from you, and even your last stronghold, a steady, if unhealthy relationship, had dissolved, slipping through your hands like grains of sand. You had nothing left in this life, save to occupy a jail cell for the rest of your natural existence.

 

You might as well give up, and give up you did. 

 

By the time that the last of the scabs on your jaw had finally flaked off, you no longer bothered to try to interact with anyone, no longer bothered to try yelling to get the attention of whoever listened. You stopped begging to be freed, stopped asking to know how long you'd been there, what recent events had transpired outside of the fortress, stopped asking for something to read, or write with. You even stopped asking for the Shade. 

 

Now, if you weren't being poked awake by some guard or another, you were sleeping. Even then, you often slumbered away despite the attempts to wake you, seeing no point in waking anymore, seeing nothing to look forward to. You notice that the guards are no longer watching you as closely anymore, turning their backs to you or looking away when they should've been paying closer attention. You start to smuggle bits of food up your sleeve, into your dress. It isn't much, and is downright foolish, as the consequences if you were to be caught, you'd likely be punished even more severely than you already were. You continued to do so, if only for the fact that the sharp pain of hunger gave you something to concentrate on, if only for a short while, something aside from your own thoughts. 

 

Your sleep is tormented, nightmares that leave you thrashing around and crying out in your sleep, half part memory, half part new creation, until finally, you are no longer entirely sure that your memories are correct anymore, no longer certain what is fantasy and what is reality. Secretly, you hope that this whole thing will be a terrible dream, that you'll eventually wake up, or more accurately, be jabbed awake by a pointed talon for your thrashing interrupting the Shade while he was trying to read in bed. 

 

Worse still than the nightmares, are the dreams of what could have been.

 

You dream of being born to a different family, dream of what could have happened if only you'd taken a different route through the market that day, what could have been if only you'd been upfront with your then-fiance about your past. These were the dreams that leave you to wake up sobbing so hard you think your lungs will collapse, the possibilities taunting you, just out of reach, where they will remain forever more. 

 

By the time that your dress is once more nearly a tent on you and the scars on your jaw are just the slightest bit less puffy, your mind has driven you practically insane, and you have made peace with the idea that you'll waste away to mere nothingness in this dungeon. You aren't sure whether the wasting away will be physical, or perhaps, mental, but at this point, it no longer matters.

 

Nothing matters anymore. 

 

Your thoughts start to grow morbid, as you realize just how little life means. You think about how much force it would take to break a finger, a wrist, a rib. You question if when the bones come out of the skin, they will be sharp, or would they be as dull as the chicken bones you boiled and snapped for the marrow so many years ago. You wonder if there is such a thing as bone broth made out of unconventional bones, such as human, or even dragon bones, how much such a commodity may go for on the black market.

 

Most importantly, you can't help but ask yourself if by breaking a bone so severely it ripped through your skin, a thing that should be on the inside now prominently displayed on the outside, you'd secure yourself a release from here, if only temporarily to see a healer, or at least, have a healer come to see you here.

 

Then, you correct yourself.

 

You'd be more likely to be left alone down here, in pain, delirious, perhaps until you got an infection and lost your limb, or even your life, than to be granted the 'privilege' of seeing a healer. Not for the first time, you can't help but wonder how and why things between you and the Shade went downhill so quickly that he'd leave you to essentially rot in a jail cell. 

 

The only thing that you can zoom in on, the only thing that seems concrete enough to warrant such a thing, is the fact that when you fainted in the hallway all those months ago, only a few months, but yet, feeling like a lifetime ago, you managed to betray his trust, make him think that you were continuing to self-sabotage and self-destruct just to spite him, that all of his efforts at being a 'better' being were wasted. 

 

Of course, even after the conversation that the two of you had carried out shortly after you'd awoken, you tried to talk to him, tried to explain yourself, to get him to see your side of the story, but it was no use. After the outburst that you'd had, he decided you were more trouble than you were worth, and you'd be staying in the dungeons until the moment he decided if and when you were allowed to be free.

 

Needless to say, the word if was a more likely outcome than the word when. 

 

This train of thought sparks a fresh wave of tears, something you'd thought impossible since you'd started to numb out to everything around you. It would appear that he had his talons dug deeper into you than you'd previously thought, previously realized. The worst thing was, you couldn't help but wonder, what would have happened that day, if instead of yelling at him, slapping him away, you'd apologized, tried to smooth things over?

 

Sure, you weren't entirely the one in the wrong, but the thought niggled at your brain day in and day out when you had nothing else to think about. Privately, you couldn't help but feel that you were being penalized for disagreeing with him, for daring to stand up to him, just as much as for, if not more so, than your actual mistakes. As much as you were pissed at him for the decimation of your birthplace, you realized that if given a chance, you'd take back everything you said that day, if only to prevent the suffering that you were going through now. 

 

You were so lost in your thoughts, ruminating over the same mistakes a thousand different ways, that you didn't notice as the shadows in the dungeon started to coalesce into a single pool of darkness in the shape of a human silhouette. 


	4. Chapter 4

You are dragged back to the present by the sound of a key turning in the lock to your cell, the hinges screeching in protest as the heavy iron door scrapes open across the stone floor. You nearly jump out of your skin in shock at this sound, a sound you never thought you'd hear, something you'd long since given up on. You look up, expecting to see some soldier or another standing in front of you, blocking the way out of the cell in case you suddenly got any bright ideas. 

 

The last thing you expected to see was the monster that put you in this cage, opening the door more than generously enough for you to exit. You wonder if this is some sort of a sick torment. It seemed like something he would do, if he truly wanted to break down whatever was left of your mind. This thought is what keeps you from leaping to your feet and making a mad dash for the door in front of you. Instead, you rise slowly, willing the black spots at the edges of your vision away, one hand going to the stone wall to steady yourself. Your joints creak and pop in protest at the sudden movement after having spent so many hours frozen in place. 

 

It takes only a few short steps to place you squarely in front of the iron bars. You expect the door to slam shut in your face at any moment, but it doesn't. Closer now, even in the dim lights cast by the irregularly placed torches in the dungeon, you can see he looks worse for wear, hair mussed and robes rumpled around him. You feel your breath catch as your mind instantly jumps to the worse case scenario, the reason behind his appearance. A nagging voice in the back of your head says that you've been replaced, and he's only letting you out to kill you, or perhaps, if you are very, very lucky, set you out into the wilderness surrounding Gil'ead with little more than the clothing on your back. 

 

The moment that you are out of the cell, the Shade gestures at you to follow him, before setting off on a path out of the maze of corridors beneath his fortress. He doesn't even bother to close the door behind you, and as you follow him, you notice that he isn't walking half as fast as he normally would. You aren't sure if this is a concerted effort on his behalf to ensure that he would not leave you too far behind. Speaking of, if he was absolutely intent on dragging you out of here to kill you, there was precious little in the way of actual dragging, and it would be terribly foolish for him to allow a prisoner to lag behind him, out of his line of vision, even if he  _was_ capable of catching you effortlessly if you tried to run. 

 

But where would you run to? 

 

It is that thought, not love, not loyalty, not even fear, that compels you to follow him out of the dungeon and into the hallways of the citadel above, only slightly better lit. Indeed, where could you run? Who could possibly keep you safe against the demon cavorting about in cruel parody of a man? What foolish mortal would dare take you in? If your looks didn't put them off you, certainly your history would. 

 

Finally, it hits you as the two of you are halfway up a staircase, and he pauses, leaning on the banister more than just casual lounging would necessitate. Something is wrong. Normally, he would simply wave his hand and the two of you would disappear in a cloud of grey smoke, only to reappear in a puff of the same noxious gas at your intended destination. Even if he intended for this to be unpleasant for you, having to walk about after being confined for so long in such a small cell, it would be a frosty day in hell before he would ever need to use any part of his surroundings as support. 

 

He heaves a sigh, shaking his head slightly, before shoving himself away from the handrail, continuing up the stairs. You couldn't even hear him berate himself for showing such a sign of weakness, but whether that was attributable to him not having the energy to waste on needless words, or simply a matter of not listening intently enough, you weren't certain, but you were more than willing to bet on the first of the two options. 

 

When finally, you reach your -  _his_ \- chambers, you're not quite sure what to expect anymore. A quick glance around the room seems to tell you that the room is very much the same as the last time you saw it, right down to the book you'd left on the nightstand, a scrap of ribbon hanging out from between the pages to mark the last passage you'd read. You have no time to investigate further before you realize that he's staring at you. You make eye contact for but a brief moment before dropping your gaze to the floor, but it is enough. He looks exhausted, drained beyond belief, almost human in his expression. There is no malice, no rage, or at least, none that is intended for you. 

 

"You need a bath." He mutters, waving towards the door that leads to the bathroom before dropping heavily into the chair at his desk. It is the first thing that he has said to you since freeing you, and while it gives you some hope that things are returning to normal, or at least, what passes for normal between the two of you, it sends a pang of embarrassment through you. While you had been provided with the bare necessities in your cell, you hadn't been given the luxury of a proper bath in quite some time. You scuttle off to make yourself look somewhat human again, unwilling to voice any of the dozens of questions that swirl around your head. 

 

Even as you wash away the filth and grime from your hair and skin, basking in the warm water that had half-filled the tub you sat in, you remain on edge, ears straining for the slightest sound from the other side of the door. There is only the faint scratching of a quill on paper to be heard, the odd word or two murmured as they were being written. It gives you no hint as to what was occurring, what was yet to happen. You whisper a quick prayer to any gods that were listening, assuming any existed - not that they'd proven their existence to you before in the many times you'd asked, begged, pleaded for help -a prayer that the worst of it was finally over, that this wasn't just another sick game, or worse a hallucination brought on by stress.

 

As the words leave your lips, you cringe and recoil from them - as earnest and desperate as they sounded in your mind, the moment they are released into the air they sound like the words of a child playing pretend, a foolish wish made upon the stars, or a flower, or some other insufficient entity with no more power to change fate than the being that asked guidance of it. You can't help but feel that somehow, by voicing your wishes, your desires, you've somehow ensured that they will not come to fruition, or worse yet, that you will receive the exact opposite of what you have asked for. 

 

By the time the water has grown cold around you, it has taken on the approximate colour of mud, and fear has blossomed in your heart. In the act of pulling on fresh clothes, you cannot help but feel that you are putting on armor, armor to face whatever lay on the other side of that door, and doubtlessly, armor that would not protect you, a moot point, a mere gesture in the grand scheme of things. You cast a glance at the crumpled up fabric that comprised the dress you'd worn in confinement. Now, wadded up on the floor as it was, it resembled little more than a pile of threadbare rags, not even fit to wipe the floor with.

 

Was that his way of breaking you further? To allow you to enjoy a reprieve from suffering, only to plunge you back into it without warning? You know that if that were to happen, you'd likely snap like a twig under the boot of an Urgal. 

 

When you finally open the door, you see that he is but a few steps in front of the door, almost as if he were going to open it from the outside. You hadn't heard his footsteps, hadn't even been aware of when the scratching of the pen had stopped. If you'd wasted but a moment more caught up in your thoughts, there was a very good chance that he would've walked in on you in a state of undress, or worse, in the act of washing off the evidence of the past several months. 

 

"I thought you'd drowned", he says, but there is no teeth to the words, no accompanying snarl or growl, or even a sarcastic tone. It is not an apology, not that you'd expect one, but it is the nearest thing to him explaining his actions unprompted. Somehow, there is a softness to his words, entirely at odds with what you'd known him to be, and for a second, a wave of pity for whatever he was, whatever he could've been before the spirits washes through you. You stop it before it can get any further - you've learned the hard way before that showing him pity was a recipe for disaster. 

 

Knowing that you cannot stand in the doorway to the bathroom forever, you slowly close the distance between the two of you, approaching him as you'd approach a wild animal - cautious, hesitant, and just a hint fearful. The slightest shadow of annoyance flickers across his face for a moment before disappearing again. It would appear that you would be given no leave to be afraid of him, no allowance for hesitation, despite everything he has done, everything he has put you through. 

 

You cannot understand his logic, and yet, it makes perfect sense as the pieces click into place one by one. You are not a human - you never were. Your feelings do not matter - they never have, and they never will, at least not to him. You are not a living entity with needs and desires of your own - you simply exist to fulfill a need. You are merely a tool, a puppet on a lonely string, acting out the narrative that he has written. 

 

As soon as you are within arms reach, he grabs you, pulling you against him. You realize that this is a test, and slowly, perhaps too slowly for his liking, your hands come up, wrap around him. You'd like to do nothing more than shove him away from you, attack him for all you were worth at this point, your ire and distaste for the beast having grown in the time you spent locked away with little more to do than lurk in your thoughts and nurse your hatred, your spite, but you know that to betray any of your feelings now would be to fail. 

 

The moment that your arms wrap around him, his grasp on you tightens until you can barely breathe, certain that your spine, your ribs, every single bone in your body would crack if he held on even a bit more tightly. He buries his face in your damp hair, and lets out a sigh. It is not a sigh of exasperation, shockingly enough, and if you still believed him capable of any sort of human emotion, any sort of human desire, you would've taken it for a sigh of contentment. 

 

At this point, not only are you unsure of what's going on, but you're too afraid to ask. This entire night has taken a large detour from the status quo, and it seems highly unlikely that things will return to the norm any time soon. All you can do is go along with whatever new strain of madness that has gripped the Shade, and pray that you make it out alive. You wonder briefly if he is reading your thoughts in this moment, but it is too late. If he is indeed spying on your mind, he gives no indication. 

 

"I've had a stressful day." He murmurs into your hair. It is another pseudo explanation, another tidbit of information offered up without prompting. Here it is, a rare chink in the armor, in the cool facade that he normally wears, and you cannot help but question his motivation in showing the slightest hint of weakness, the slightest hint that something was not okay. 

 

"That stupid Rider and his cohorts rescued the elf." 

 

Your blood runs cold. So the rumors were true. There is another Rider besides the king. You feel a mixture of elation and fear; despite your distaste for your current existence, it was something you knew, and while it was not perfect, you'd grown used to it, comfortable in it, and you knew, should the ruling class, if you could indeed call it that, be upset, then you'd have less than nothing. While you were not privy to much information, you were not an idiot, and as such, could infer that if the new Rider was breaking and entering, and likely breaking things after entering, before leaving with a prisoner, that it was very likely that they were in direct opposition of the king. 

 

That still didn't explain why you were free. Normally, the Shade would be furious at such a display of brazenness, enraged at himself for such a catastrophic failure, and would be more likely to murder someone than to seek out comfort, if indeed that was what he was doing now. Despite every fiber in your body screaming at you to stay silent, you find that your curiosity has gotten the better of you as you ask, "What happened?"

 

Time seems to freeze for a moment, and his body stiffens in your arms.

 

"What do you think? The fool failed to kill me." he hisses. You close your eyes, pressing your face against his shirt, listen to the sound of his blackened heart thumping away, praying that this is not the moment that he loses whatever self-control he has left. It all makes sense now, the disheveled appearance, the quietness, the lack of rage, what passed for neediness for him. Regeneration, he had said to you once before, several years back, and indeed, the only time that you could indeed remember such an event happening, was extraordinarily painful, something that he wasn't keen on experiencing. 

**Author's Note:**

> I was having a shit day, the followup to a shitty weekend, a shitty week, a shitty few years, and decided I needed some fucking fluff in my life. Yes, with a creepy bastard, no less. Why should it matter?
> 
> (Side note, I started rewatching Once Upon a Time, and I've hit season 3, where Rumplestiltskin is in Neverland by himself and apparently going insane. I see these tiny flashes of what a certain Shade could've been, if given the chance. Don't get me wrong, Robert Carlyle is a fantastic actor, and one hell of a snacc despite being old enough to be my father, but the movie adaptation of Eragon was absolute shit. That being said, I'd pay good fucking money to see a GOOD remake, and Mr. Carlyle reprising his original role.)


End file.
